Safe
by finpai
Summary: Mikkel and Emil are both attracted to guys, and happen to be on different sides of the popularity and obedience scale. Opposites attract, but will this turn out to be an adorable love story, or simply put- a train wreck?
-Emil's POV-

The first thing I woke up to is a loud shriek. Startled awake, I practically jolt up into a sitting position, slamming my forehead into a wooden bar helping to hold up the bed above mine. "F-" No way. I say one dirty word in this house and I get my phone taken for a week.

A head of dark hair peers down at me from the top bunk. "What the heck did you just do?" My eyes narrowed as I rubbed my now sore head. "Sat up- someone just screamed."

"Screamed?"

"Did you seriously not hear that?"

It was then when I noticed the earbuds shoved into his ears. "Never mind.."

I stood up, throwing my blankets to the side of my bed before stretching. When I looked back to the bunks, he had already laid back down and covered himself up. Typical Xiao.

I didn't even bother changing out of my pajamas before walking downstairs- only to be greeted with another screech as soon as my feet hit the last step. What in the holy hell?

Rushing into the living room, I raised my hands up in front of me, not really knowing what to expect.

"DAMN PUFFIN!"

Shit.

I bolted into the kitchen, where the yelling was coming from. Sitting in the floor, splattered with pancake batter, was my older brother. Meanwhile, my puffin stood on the stovetop, sticking his beak into a whole bowl full of mixed batter. My own wide eyes met with my brother's, which had a look that suggested he really wanted to murder something. All he did was point to my puffin. "Get. It. Out. /Now./"

Simple instructions. I nodded quickly and rushed over to grab at the puffin, who squirmed in my arms as I ran as fast as I could back to my room. By the time I had arrived, Xiao was awake, swinging his legs off the top bunk as he scrolled through his phone. "Dude- I heard screaming."

I deadpanned.

"Of course you did, because Mr. Puffin found a way out of his kennel again." On queue, the bird churred and looked up at me innocently. My arms dropped and he hopped down onto the floor, waddling around the room as he always did. Xiao's eyes followed him. "I can't believe that your brother hasn't already got rid of him."

As my own eyes stayed glued to Mr. Puffin, I sighed and moved to sit down on my part of the bed. "Well, he's tried, but really, who would willingly just take a puffin?" They weren't common pets, thank the gods. I didn't trust anyone else to look after him. After all, I've had him since I was a little kid. No way I'd willingly get rid of him in high school.

High school.

"Oh shit, we're gonna be late for school!" At the moment, I didn't really care that a dirty word had slipped. Just so long as Lukas didn't hear it, I'd be fine. Xiao threw his phone to the ground (which he always did when surprised) and slid down from the top bunk.

"It's like, 7:30 or something-"

"Oh my gods Xiao, why didn't you tell me?!"

"I was busy!"

"Doing what, scrolling through porn?"

"Hey, it's good porn!"

"Just shut up and get ready!"

My own clothes were laid out on my dresser, which I grabbed before running into the bathroom to quickly change.

My style was what most people would call 'goth' or 'punk' or 'please go to church and ask Jesus to bless you'. Really, I just wore a lot of heavy metal band shirts with a dark leather jacket, black skinny jeans, my favourite spike-studded boots, and occasionally, a really cool looking choker.

Xiao wore basically the same stuff- dark clothes, though unlike me, he wore a lot of piercings. Only reason I didn't was because Lukas would kill me if I ever got one. He barely tolerated all the dark stuff I wore, and I could only wear my choker at school, since he had no clue I owned one.

"Em, are you done yet?"

"Wha- yeah!"

I practically kicked the bathroom door open in a rush to reach my backpack, quickly grabbing it and slipping it on my back before motioning to Xiao to follow me downstairs. On the way down, I remembered that I hadn't locked my door so Mr. Puffin couldn't get out. There was no time to go back up, so I just hoped that he wouldn't give Lukas any trouble.

Before I could get out the front door, a hand harshly snatched my backpack, stopping me in my tracks. "Lukas, what do you want?" I sighed, annoyance evident in my tone. "Just wanted to say bye- and warn you that if you're late to school today, no more weekday sleepovers with Xiao." I just brushed it off, turning to glance back at him. "Yea yea, whatever." He then let go of me, and I was out the door with Xiao behind me.

Once we were a good distance from the house, we began to run. I lived in a neighbourhood fairly close to the school, so my form of transportation was walking; it would have to be running today if we didn't want to be late.

Lucky for us, I knew a few shortcuts, getting us to school about a minute before the bells rang to start class.

-Mikkel's POV-

Left, right. Left, right. I was extremely disoriented as a result of these winding halls, all practically empty since classes had started. But of course, I had absolutely no idea where I was going. For the gods' sake, I didn't even know where the main office was! How would I find my classes without that important starting point?

For a moment, I stopped in an intersection of even more hallways, panting lightly from having to jog around the entire school. "Where am I-?" None of this was familiar, none at all. Why weren't there signs to direct people around?

"'xcuse me, are ya lost?"

At the sound of this incredibly deep voice, I half jumped and whirled around to face it. No wonder I was scared. The man facing me was a good head taller than I was. His narrowed eyes peeking out from behind his spectacles didn't make him look any less threatening. "I- uh.." One of my hands had found its way down into the pocket of my jeans, a nervous habit.

The man crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow as a gesture which told me to spit it out. My eyes started to squint up, just barely watering. It was almost like I couldn't stop what happened next.

My head was thrown back as I dropped everything I had and started to wail. "I'MNEWHEREANDIDON'TKNOWWHEREIAMANDNOWI'MLATE!"

Though I didn't see the look on his face since my eyes were filled to the brim with tears, I imagine he must've been pretty surprised to see a 17 year old boy crying like a baby. I could hear a faint "So this 's Mikkel," come from this guy, who was most likely talking to himself. The next thing I knew, there was a hand gently patting my shoulder and a tissue shoved into my hand. "There's nothing t' get upset over, just calm down." Mind you, even though this guy looked scary, that deep voice sure was soothing in a way.

After grabbing what I had practically thrown down on the floor, he began to lead me down a hallway I could've sworn I had been down at least twice. We only took about fifteen steps before stopping in front of an older-looking door, with a sign right above it reading 'Front Office'.

Never in my life had I felt more stupid.

It took two minutes for the secretary to type my name into the computer and print out my school schedule. The man in glasses- who I learned was Principal Oxenstierna, waited beside me so he could look over the schedule and lead me to my first class. "Mm, ch'mistry. Yer just right down the hall."

I was honestly quite relieved that I didn't have to trek around the entire school again. Mr. Oxenstierna quickly led me down some other super long hallway to an obviously sciencey place (considering the walls had equations and planets and test tubes painted all over them). Room 134 was my classroom, and it was only a couple seconds after knocking on the door in which a smaller man in goggles greeted us. "Ah, Berwald, what a nice surprise!" His shoulder-length brunette hair was pulled back into a ponytail, likely because he was holding a beaker filled with a clear bubbling liquid.

The room had quietened down after Mr. Oxenstierna had walked in, usually what happened in any school whenever a principal was present. Guiding me with a hand still on my shoulder, he stuck me right in the front of the room. I could feel all eyes on me as my face began to grow red with slight embarrassment. "This 's Mikkel Køhler. He j'st transferred here from Denmark. Treat him kindly like ya would any classmate."

My other shoulder was soon occupied by my new teacher's hand. "Right! I expect all of you to help out Mikkel in any way you can." He then turned to face me. "I'm Toris, Mr. Toris. Don't even bother using my last name because what's the point of having a first name if no one here uses it?" Note to self: chem teacher is overly friendly.

A moment later, he was addressing the class again. "Alright, we're going to rearrange some people so we can have a place for Mikkel to sit." Everyone here sat in pairs, though there were quite a few groups of three. I started to look around and take it all in. This class was mostly filled with people who looked like me, meaning that they looked like your average school nerd. That settled my churning stomach.

"Alrighty Mikkel, you don't mind sitting in the back do you?" I snapped back to reality and glanced around the faces staring at me. "Uh, no. It's fine." Mr. Toris smiled and gestured to the back of the room. "Your partner will be Emil. He's the guy in black garb, you can't miss him!"

Well, there went my calm stomach.

I nodded lightly to Mr. Toris before turning to walk down the row of tables which would lead me to the back of the room. No matter how hard I tried not to look, my eyes had enough and flicked over to look at this Emil kid.

He was covered head to toe in black, black, and more black. Only things that weren't black where his skin and his hair, which looked like a light silver. Even his eyes shone with a deep violet, making me shudder. Currently, his arms were crossed and his spike-covered boots were up on the table.

This was definitely someone I never wanted to associate with.

This was definitely someone I didn't expect myself to look at and instantly fall for.

Yet that was exactly what was happening.


End file.
